for the first time in my life, i love myself more than anyone else. there's no room for self-abandonment or neglect anymore. the tides change, and so do i.
You have to learn the person you love.
You cannot love someone into being who you need them to be. You cannot assume you know them just because you feel deeply for them. You have to study them. You have to understand their personality, their wounds, their attachment style, their triggers, their unspoken fears, their love language, the way they process pain and joy and conflict. I learned this the hard way, by loving people I never truly took the time to know. I projected my own expectations onto them. I assumed they thought like me, needed like me, loved like me. And when they did not meet my unspoken expectations, I blamed them instead of realizing that I never actually learned who they were. That lesson cost me relationships. It cost me misunderstandings that could have been avoided. It cost me the pain of being in love with a version of someone that never really existed. But it also taught me that love is not just a feeling. It is a study. It is a commitment to truly knowing the person you claim to love. Not the idea of them. Not the potential of them. But the real, complex, flawed, beautiful human being standing in front of you. And once you learn them, you can truly love them. Not as a projection. But as a person.
you know sometimes i think we enter relationships bc we have this idea that just bc you feel something for someone it should end in commitment. sometimes just love that person and have fun and be over without ever becoming their bf/gf. it’s allowed btw.
In order to become a better person, you must first realize how horrible you really are. Not in the dramatic sense, but in the quiet ways you sabotage yourself, repeat unhealthy patterns, hurt people who care about you, or tolerate what wounds you. You cannot grow if you keep pretending you're innocent in the story you've created.